A 56-year-old woman, identified as Maria Schwab from Schertz, Texas, was struck by a white 2016 Infiniti SUV at around 12:30 a.m. Thursday morning while visiting Chicago for a work trip. A 40-year-old off-duty Chicago police officer lost control of her several-thousand-pound projectile when she dropped her cell phone and took her eyes off the road to look for it. The driver abruptly swerved up onto the sidewalk, striking and killing Schwab. The officer has temporarily “been relieved of her police powers” in the aftermath of the deadly crash.
The driver’s account of the crash in an official statement to police indicates she was driving south on State Street when she dropped her phone. “Her phone fell to the floor of the vehicle and she attempted to grab it and took her eyes off the road,” according to the report. “When she looked up, she believed she was going to strike the median in the center of the road and attempted to avoid it by veering to the right.” So instead of some curb rash on her wheels, or perhaps something as devastating as a broken control arm, the officer over-corrected and ended someone’s life.
Reports from Chicago indicate that the Chicago Police Department was holding its annual holiday party at the House of Blues music venue just down the block from where the crash occurred. It isn’t clear whether the officer was in attendance of the party or not, and no blood alcohol test was administered at the scene. The officer received a citation for negligent driving, failing to reduce speed to prevent a crash, failing to stay in a lane, and driving while using a phone.
At the time of the crash, five women had been walking along State Street, including Schwab and another woman who was also struck by the car but not seriously injured.
There is nothing on your cell phone important enough to be worth someone else’s life, or potentially your own. Leave the dopamine rectangle somewhere you can’t see it if you can’t even trust yourself to drive without scrolling Twitter or whatever. Something must be done about phones and driving, and probably should have been done 20 years ago, but certainly won’t be. We have to collectively do our best to make it as uncool as possible, and maybe it’ll eventually go away like smoking largely has. Hang up the fucking phone and drive, you degenerates.